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Historicity in Peter Ackroyd's Novels Masaryk University Faculty of Education Department of English Language and Literature Historicity in Peter Ackroyd's Novels Diploma Thesis Brno 2014 Written by: Bc. Jana Neterdová Supervisor: Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D. Bibliografický záznam Neterdová, Jana. Historicity in Peter Ackroyd's novels. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, Fakulta pedagogická, Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury, 2014. 56l. Vedoucí diplomové práce Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D. Anotace Cílem diplomové práce Historicity in Peter Ackroyd's novels je analyzovat roli historicity v románech daného autora a zhodnotit jakým způsobem a za jakým účelem autor zachází s historickými daty. Práce je rozdělena na dva oddíly, část teoretickou a část analytickou. V teoretické části se práce věnuje definování postmodernismu a postmoderní literatury, protože Peter Ackroyd jako současný autor je považován za představitelé postmodernismu v literatuře. Dále je zde definován pojem historiografická metafikce jako označení pro historický román období postmodernismu. Další část práce je věnována Peteru Ackroydovi a podává základní informace o jeho životě a bližší pohled na jeho dílo, především romány. V analytické části jsou rozebírány čtyři romány: The Lambs of London, The Fall of Troy, The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde a Chatterton. Analýza zahrnuje identifikování prvků, které jsou relevantní pro historicitu románů a vychází z teorie historiografické metafikce. Zabývá se především intertextualitou a způsobem jakým Ackroyd "přepisuje" historii. Poznatky analýzy jsou shrnuty v poslední části práce, ve které jsou vyvozeny závěry, které odpovídají na otázku jak Peter Ackroyd ve svých románech zachází s historií. Abstract Diploma thesis Historicity in Peter Ackroyd's novels aims to analyse the role of historicity in the author's novels and to evaluate how and for what purpose the author deals with history. The thesis is divided into two parts, a theoretical and an analytical. Post-modernism and post-modern literature are defined in the first part of the thesis because Peter Ackroyd is a representative of post-modernity in literature. Further, term historiographic metafiction is defined as a name for historical novel in post-modern era. The following part is dedicated to Peter Ackroyd, his life and work, especially novels. 2 The analytical part deals with four novels: The Lambs of London, The Fall of Troy, The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde and Chatterton. The analysis concentrates on features relevant to historicity and is based on historiographic metafiction theory. It deals mainly with inter-textuality and the way Ackroyd re-writes history. The last part of the thesis contains conclusions which answer the question how does Peter Ackroyd deal with history. Klíčová slova historicita, postmodernismus, postmoderní literatura, současní autoři, britská literatura, analýza, intertextualita, historiografická metafikce, Peter Ackroyd Key Words historicity, historiographic metafiction, post-modernism, post-modern literature, British literature, analysis, inter-textuality, contemporary authors, Peter Ackroyd 3 Prohlášení Prohlašuji, že jsem diplomovou práci zpracovala samostatně a použila jen prameny uvedené v seznamu literatury. Declaration I hereby declare that this diploma thesis is my own work and that I used only sources listed in the list of references. Brno, 18. dubna 2014 ........................................................ Bc. Jana Neterdová 4 Poděkování Na tomto místě bych ráda poděkovala vedoucí své práce Mgr. Lucii Podroužkové, Ph.D. za pomoc, inspiraci a pochopení. Zároveň chci poděkovat své rodině a partnerovi za podporu a neustálou motivaci. Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D. for help, inspiration and understanding. At the same time, I would like to thank my family and my partner for support and ever-lasting motivation. 5 Contents 1 Introduction............................................................................................................7 2 Post-modern Literature and Historicity.......................................................................10 2.1 Post-modernism: Definition and philosophical background................................10 2.2 Post-modern Literature........................................................................................12 2.3 Post-modern literature and history. Historiographic metafiction.........................17 3 About the Author: Life and Work of Peter Ackroyd....................................................22 3.1 Peter Ackroyd: Biography....................................................................................22 3.2 Peter Ackroyd: Summary of work.......................................................................23 3.3 Peter Ackroyd: His importance and place among contemporary writers............29 4 Historicity in Peter Ackroyd's Novels.........................................................................31 4.1 The Lambs of London: Family History Rewritten...............................................31 4.2 The Fall of Troy: A Story Which We Need..........................................................42 4.3 The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Adopting Style............47 4.4 Chatterton - The Praise of Forgery.......................................................................53 5 Conclusion...................................................................................................................60 6 Summary......................................................................................................................63 7 List of sources..............................................................................................................64 6 1 Introduction The purpose of diploma thesis Historicity in Peter Ackroyd's novels is to closely examine novels by contemporary British writer Peter Ackroyd. Peter Ackroyd is one of the most prominent figures of contemporary British literature. Starting his writing career in early eighties, he belongs to representatives of British post-modern fiction together with Angela Carter, Salman Rushdie or Martin Amis. However, his work is not widely known in the Czech Republic, only few of his novels and works of non-fiction were translated into Czech language. Therefore, I want to examine his novels more closely and since Ackroyd is claimed to be a post-modern writer, the main concern of my diploma thesis will be post-modern features of the novels. Nevertheless, this theme would be rather broad and therefore I will concentrate first of all on Ackroyd's dealing with historical facts, because retelling history is one of the features of post-modern writings. My main research question is: How does Peter Ackroyd deal with historicity in his novels? The expected result of my research then is that in correspondence with post-modern writing theory, Ackroyd re-tells history in order to convey a message that history in fact does not exist and all historical facts are subject for our own consideration. The main concern of this diploma thesis was historicity in novels. By historicity I understand historical background and historical information used in the novels in order to give a fictional story a stamp of reality. As for my method, I started with reading primary literature. I decided to choose a reasonable number of novels which I was able to read and re-read without risk of missing something important. The final number of novels for analysis was four. I decided to work with these novels: The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde, Chatterton, The Lambs of London and The Fall of Troy. The criterion for choosing these particular novels were as follows: the topic dealing with historical events and the date of issue. I would like to point to possible progress in Ackroyd's work and therefore I made a decision to employ two novels from the eighties (The Last Testament and Chatterton) 7 and two novels written in the last decade (The Lambs of London and The Fall of Troy). Besides the primary sources mentioned above, I worked with numerous secondary sources. The crucial secondary source for this thesis was work of Linda Hutcheon, namely book A Poetics of Post-modernism: History, Theory, Fiction and article Historiographic Metafiction. Theory of historiographic metafiction presented in these works became a basis for my analysis. An insight into post-modernism was provided by The Icon Critical Dictionary of Post-modern Thought, edited by Stuart Sim which includes relevant information about post-modern philosophy and literature theory. Another source I would like to mention here is Barry Lewis' My Words Echo Thus: Possessing the Past in Peter Ackroyd which contains useful and accurate info not only about Ackroyd himself but also about his work ranging from 1980's to 21st century. Finally, the work of Susana Onega, namely Peter Ackroyd and Interview with Peter Ackroyd provided additional information about Ackroyd's life as well as comments on analysed novels, e.g. The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde. Besides these most important works, I worked with many other sources ranging from books to articles to websites. The List of sources is provided in the last part of the thesis. The diploma thesis is divided into two parts: a theoretical and a practical one. The theoretical part is covered in chapters two and three. In chapter two introduction to the theory of post-modernism and its philosophical background is made, as well as an insight into post-modern literature and its features which are relevant to historicity.
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